


Silent Lucidity

by Cuthwyn



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Green Arrow (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Baby Wearing FTW!, Depression, Dick is a good friend, Drug Addiction, Family Bonding, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Hazardous Diaper Changes, Past Drug Use, Rookie Parenting, Sleep Deprivation, cold coffee
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 05:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18440015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cuthwyn/pseuds/Cuthwyn
Summary: Fatherhood: The Art of Cold Coffee.Fatherhood was not an identity Roy thought he’d ever wear.Addict is a far more comfortable identity to wear, like an old coat.Babies are there to be loved and to bring joy.Somehow, somewhere, Roy is convinced he is getting it wrong.The reality is nothing like that.Roy finds solace one night in a rocking chair in a dark room.





	Silent Lucidity

The choices you make in life have consequences.  
Roy Harper has never been an overly fast learner, but the concept that a bad choice ended with a bad consequence was something he was definitely beginning to grasp.  
If asked to describe his life choices at the moment, it would be a rocking chair in a dark room.  
It’s where he was now.  
Sat in an old, rickety rocking chair in a dark room.  
It’s lonely there and grief claws at his throat so harsh it takes every ounce of strength not to scream.  
Roy had made some bad choices and now he reaped the barren seeds that he’d sown.  
Except they hadn’t been all that barren, had they? In the end.  
For Roy sat in a rocking chair in a dark room, humming softly as the chair creaked, a steady motion back and forth.  
Against his bared chest a small, pudgy hand fisted. Deep ocean blue eyes gazed up at him in the darkness. 

‘Hush now don't cry. Wipe away the teardrop from your eye.  
You're lying safe in bed, it was all a bad dream.Spinning in your head.  
Your mind tricked you to feel the pain, of someone close to you leaving the game of life.  
So here it is, another chance, wide awake you face the day.Your dream is over, or has it just begun?’ Roy sang gently, lips pressed against downy black hair that smelled so sweet.  
Queensryche probably wasn’t most parents’ go to for a lullaby, but that would imply that Roy thought himself as a parent. Tonight, Roy just wanted the baby in his arms to go back to sleep after waking with a tummy ache. It was probably from too much milk. Roy knew that bottle had been to big, why hadn’t he just got the smaller one?  
In all honestly though, Roy felt a little melodramatic to be beating himself up about something so trivial.  
Beneath that first layer of guilt ran another layer, one that twisted and wrapped itself around his grief like an ill advised lover.  
How could Roy call himself a father and yet feel so low? How on Earth had courts deemed him worthy, when just sitting with Lian at 4am made him weep with her?  
What choice was this?

With a soft sigh, Lian finally closed her eyes and did that shuffle grunt thing Roy had figured out meant that she would be fast asleep within the next ten minutes.  
‘I will be watching over you. I am gonna help you see it through. I will protect you in the night. I am smiling next to you, in silent lucidity.’ Roy sang, rising slowly from the rocking chair in the dark room to settle Lian down in her cot. Calloused fingers brushed her cheek before Roy pulled the blankets up beneath the baby’s chin to keep her warm.  
He was meant to feel something now, something more than a hollow ache.  
That was how this worked. In stories, in the conversations adults had when a baby came into their lives. Happy faces with toothy grins. Love at first sight.  
Sinking down to his haunches, Roy clutched the rails of the cheap cot bought in a rush a thrift store, not painstakingly chosen to match the wallpaper.  
Lian slept on oblivious, her little chest rising and falling, so vulnerable and new to the world.  
Lian needed him, already would gaze up at him with an adoration so alien Roy couldn’t stand it.  
Roy was meant to be happy now, a perfect ending. However, in reality, Roy related more to the rocking chair sat in a dark room.

Lian was crying. Again.  
Scrubbing a hand down his face, Roy stumbled into the kitchen and fumbled about with milk powder and shoved some into the bottle.  
‘Alright Pumpkin. Hold on. Please.’ Roy practically begged, his voice cracking when he glanced down to realise that he’d spooned coffee into the bottle. ‘Please.’  
God he was so tired. He had no idea what time it was but he knew the sun had not long risen and it felt like it should already be lunchtime.  
The morning nappy change had gone as well as could be expected. The stupid tabs kept ripping, so Roy had just duct taped the baby into the damn thing and hoped for the best. He hadn’t prepared enough bottles in advance, so here he was, trying to make a bottle while Lian screamed in the living room.  
And he couldn’t even do that right.  
Blinking at the coffee bottle, Roy swallowed down the urge to cry and simply reached for a new one drying on the draining board.

‘Fall down six times, get up seven.’ Roy muttered the mantra under his breath, but the words seemed emptier than they had at the beginning of his recovery. Right now, he’d take going cold turkey and rattling like coins in a tin can over this.  
At least rattling, he knew his place in the world.  
Snowbird, Junkie, Addict.  
Useless, untrustworthy, selfish.  
None of those included parenthood. None of those things should have let a court grant custody of a child to him.  
Snorting, Roy screwed on the top and stuck the bottle under the cold tap. He supposed there wasn’t much competition, with Lian’s mother being in prison.  
He was a father now, but addict was a far more comfier skin to wear. Without it, as mad as it seemed, it felt like he was walking into the lions den, without the part of himself that taught him how to survive.  
Lian’s tears drew Roy back out of his thoughts and he tested the warm milk on his hand, before deeming it safe enough to drink and heading back to the living room. He’d make more bottles later.

Lian was sat in what the shop called a ‘Baby Nest’ which looked more like an inflatable doughnut with primary colours. The little girl had strewn her toys about her in anguish and big, fat tears plopped onto plump rosy cheeks, the sight was heart breaking.  
‘Sshh, ssh Pumpkin, here you go. I got your bottle for you? I’m sorry it took so long.’  
Rushing over he quickly scooped Lian up and settled her on his lap.  
Something warm and pleasant spread across his chest, when Lian took a few gulps of milk before breaking away to smile a gummy smile up at him.  
Roy couldn’t not smile back. Eyes widening in wonder, he gently encouraged Lian to latch onto the bottle again.  
‘That was a real smile. I didn’t know babies could smile? It wasn’t wind was it Pumpkin?’  
As if answering him, tiny lips stretched into another smile around the teat, a dribble of milk running down a tiny chin.  
Chuckling, Roy closed tired eyes for a moment and just enjoyed the sounds of Lian having her fourth breakfast.  
‘I should get a book or summit? ‘Cause between you and me? I dunno what I gotta do with you?’ The hollow ache that had almost shifted, shuddered and sat over the warmth in his chest like a heavy cloud, dulling it. ‘When do babies smile?’

Roy could remember the day he met Lian vividly; and it only felt like he had brought her home with him yesterday. His hands had shook so much unbuckling her from the car seat, Oliver had ended up doing it for him with the ever present eye roll. Dinah and Dick had just exchanged smiles and assured Roy that he’d get the hang of it.  
‘You’ll be like a duck to water, don’t worry.’  
The sentence was clearly easier to say than to actually carry out, because if Roy were a duck he was pretty sure he’d be fish food at the bottom of the pond by now.  
Roy wasn’t overly sure how long it had been since he’d closed the door on well meaning friends and family and sat down on his couch with Lian. He wasn’t overly sure how long it had been since his phone had last lit up with a text or call from someone, anyone.  
Roy liked to think that he was wanted for more than just his skills as a vigilante but, ever since he had hung up his bow, not even Wally had so much as looked in his direction for food.  
There was no role, no purpose for him anymore.  
All Roy Harper was now was a recovering addict, with a baby that he didn’t even know he had until she was thrust into his arms. There was nothing anyone needed him for anymore.  
Spitting out the bottle, Lian smiled again and started babbling, batting at Roy’s chest with her hands as if trying to tell him something. Setting the bottle down on the floor, Roy perched Lian on the end of his knees and bounced her gently, listening to her little cackles. The girl had a wicked laugh that was for sure.  
Lian needed him, he supposed but that wasn’t enough. It should be, he knew it should be but it didn’t feel real, permanent even, more like he was a glorified babysitter until someone more reliable came along.  
Maybe Bruce Wayne? He’d taken in Dick and Jason and they seemed okay, what was one more kid? Roy didn’t think he’d stop them if the League came to give Lian to Bruce, it would be for the best.

Letting out a rather long, tired yawn, Roy got up and hoisted Lian onto his hip, carrying her over to the kitchen so they could look in the cupboards.  
There wasn’t much there.  
Roy desperately needed to go grocery shopping. He’d needed to have gone ever since the first shop Dinah had bought for him had diminished.  
It seemed so easy before, going out.  
All Roy had to do was get his wallet and keys, get in the car and drive to Walmart.  
Now though, such a simple task and become beyond complicated.  
He had Lian now and he couldn’t just get in the car.

First,Roy had to get Lian dressed. The outfit couldn’t be too hot or too cold, but enough layers so he could remove or add items of clothing if the temperature changed. Lian couldn’t wear her coat in the car seat because she’ll die, or something, Roy couldn’t remember why but he knew she’d die, and that was a good enough for him.  
So the coat needed to go in her changing bag along with a whole ton of other stuff.  
Enough diapers to last the trip, how many that was Roy couldn’t workout. Wipes. Spare changes of clothes in case of accidents, clothes for Roy (incase of accidents). Then came an unspecified amount of bottles, toys, burping cloths and well, by that point if Roy hadn’t given up he definitely had now.  
Then came the idea of buckling Lian into her car seat and the memory of his hands shaking and Olly pushing him out of the way to do it for him. The pushchair was left folded up by the door because Roy just didn’t have the mental capacity to start working that out.  
So instead Roy chose to just carry Lian in a sling. Not the sit in one Donna bought that he couldn't work out either, but a woven scarf Roy had found in the back of his closet.  
He understood how to wrap a baby, he’d seen adults do it all the time when he was a child.

It earned him odd looks out on the street though. Not just a man carrying a baby, but a man carrying a baby wrapped up in a bright red scarf.  
It just sent Roy spiralling further into a haze of anxiety.  
So no, Roy didn’t go grocery shopping. In fact he didn’t go anywhere.  
So far he’d managed to survive by walking with Lian to the convenience store down the block, and except from him eating the same microwave meals, they seemed to be getting by alright.  
Letting out a sigh, Roy steeled himself before reaching for the scarf and smiling down at Lian, who squealed in delight.  
Lian loved going in the sling Roy made for her and soon snuggled down against his chest and suckled on her thumb, one hand resting just above his heart.  
If Roy had describe his life right now, it would be a rocking chair in a dark room.


End file.
